It’s our daughter’s first parents’ evening. She is three. The weirdness of the situation is not alleviated by the conversation that unfolds as I negotiate a double-buggy through the trail of fried chicken that lines the route from our home to the school. Like most heart-to-hearts with the tiny narcissist, they start promisingly and soon flail.

The tears have barely subsided by the time we pull up our chairs. I breathe and apply my widest grin. Briefly. “She’s got a speech impediment, innit,” the teacher explains across the foot-high table. “Really?” I look at my husband, who appears to have swollen to abnormal proportions, his over-sized knees spilling out from the sides of plastic yellow chairs.

“Nothing to worry about, it’ll probably sort itself out. Just worth keeping an eye on.” I nod and pinch the flesh behind his knee. No response. “This year we’re starting phonics; every week we’re focusing on a new letter.”

The teacher hands me a piece of paper with a big ‘R’ on the front: “Next week, if she could bring in something beginning with this?”. The small one finally stops picking the glue from her fingers: “Mummy, I willy need a wee!”

In the next instalment in Charlotte…1st October 2016

Our editor-in-chief, Charlotte Philby,…28th September 2016

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